Time
by Saturn's Hikari
Summary: Vignette. Runner-up for Cassia's "What's the Story?" contest. Amidst the preparations at Helm's Deep, Legolas and Aragorn share a moment. Featuring some bugs, some memories and an hourglass.


Hey!

I don't own Lord of the Rings, Legolas or Aragorn. I do though, own this fic- so please do not take it.

A Legolas and Aragorn frienship fic. Somepoint at Helm's Deep, movie-verse since the book didn't have him dropping off cliffs. hope you all like it I also hope you all have a good holiday and get presents or at least enjoy break from school. No School!- I feel like such a little kid.;)

This got Runner-up in Cassia and Sioban's Mellon Chronicles "What's a story?" Contest. It was to write a Legolas & Aragorn Friendship fic based on the lyrics below and using a certain phrase. If you want to know more check out thier website at or Cassia's profile on .There's such great stuff

Please please please please review!

* * *

_As years go by  
I race the clock with you  
But if you died right now  
You know that I'd die to  
I'd die too... _

You remind me of the times  
When I knew who I was  
But still the second hand will catch us  
Like it always does

We'll make the same mistakes  
I'll take the fall for you  
I hope you need this now  
'Cause I know I still do.

"Until The Day I Die" by Story Of The Year

* * *

**Time**

"_Look Estel, I am not touching it."_

"_Why not? I thought all elves loved animals."_

"_That is not an animal. It's a bug thing." Estel held the 'that' in question, waving_ _closer and closer to Legolas's face. Legolas glared at him with steely blue eyes._

"_I do not care what you say. I'm not touching it, so you can get it out of my face." Legolas folded his arms and then took a step back for good measure. Estel saw this and grinned wickedly. _

"_You're afraid of it!" _

_Legolas shook his head. "No, I am not afraid of that-that thing." _

_Estel stepped closer, waving the insect thing at him. _

"_Then touch it."_

"_No!" Legolas stated, sticking his tongue out at him._

"_Yes"_

"_No" _

"_Yes"_

"_No'_

"_No"_

"…"

_Legolas raised a brow at his friend. _

"_Did you honestly think I wouldn't catch that?"_

Aragorn peered into the dark room, not really expecting to see much other than the beds laid out on the floor and some extra-stowed gear. But he had to check, just to be sure. And it was good he did, enough though he almost missed the figure on the last mat.

"Legolas?"

The elf didn't move a muscle; he didn't even acknowledge him. He wasn't sleeping; odd as elves were his friend had never made a habit of sleeping upright. Aragorn was concerned. And honestly a bit miffed. He hated being ignored.

"Legolas?"

He looked from studying his lap as Aragorn crouched next to him and the man barely stopped himself from falling over in surprise.

His eyes… They were scary.

So sad, as though ages and ages of pain had passed and just weary of it all. No emotion but pain and grief, like he was drowning in cold silver. And his friend was in so much pain, so sad, and so so very /old/.

Realistically Aragorn knew that his friend was older than him by centuries and that Legolas was different that him, but it was different to see it so clearly in his eyes… to see every torment of ages past laid bare without of the cheerful mask and sparkle his friend normally wore. So very ancient and /cold/.

He could now understand why men could fear these elves.

Aragorn turned away from those eyes, anything to get away from those eyes, and his gaze landed on the object cradled in Legolas's hands. It seemed innocent enough, no written heralds of death and doom, no bloodied child's toy, none of the horrors of a beaten land. Just…

"An hourglass?"

Legolas turned down to look at it, rolling it in his hands. It was small with coarse brown sand that slid from one end to another and plain unadorned metal holder that held smooth glass.

'Shh' went the sand as it emptied the top bulb and filled the second.

"Is that what this is?" Legolas said in low, quiet tones, as though he was talking to himself. Aragorn watched his friends face as he glared at the object. "I hate it." He made as if to drop the glass on the stone floor that he sat on, but Aragorn stayed his hand.

"What wrong has this done, to make you hate it so?" He asked, trying to turn to jest, _Come on, just a little touch? _Hetipped Legolas's face with his free hand so that he focused on him. Legolas eyes held that pained look, but Aragorn forced himself to not look away.

"It taunts me." Legolas whispered, turning away to look at the object Aragorn's hand covered. He slid his hands out from under Aragorn's and turned it around, gazing at its sides.

"Can you not see it?" He raised the timer up to his face and gripped it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Taunting me, Mocking me with its /time/."

He raised his hand above his head, about to chuck it across the room.

"Legolas?"

_L-legolas?_

Aragorn gently touched his friend's shoulder, concern and worry in his voice. And Legolas sighed and lowered his hand, letting the hourglass drop gently to the floor.

"Forgive me. I- It is this place, the despair…" He looked up at Aragorn, his eyes unreadable. "Aragorn, I can taste the pain, around them… I am swimming through their loss... every waking moment…"

"Ai Elu, it hurts" Legolas choked out, as Aragorn shifted to place an arm around his friend and leaned in so the two touched foreheads.

"I know mellon nin, I know." Aragorn whispered back. Legolas gave a small smile at his friend's reassurance and then a wider one as though a thought occurred to him.

"Err..."

A soldier stood in the doorway, one of the new recruits, with green flag tied around his beaten helmet, with his eyes wide open in shock and a mouth that dropped to the floor.

The two realized what this must look like, with arm around one other, heads almost touching…

Aragorn went a flaming red and fell over off the mat trying to move away from Legolas, who just grinned.

"I-um-I-I" the young boy stuttered in a high-embarrassed voice, then composed himself and spoke with a clear and deeper voice."Err- Excuse me, um… looking-for-the-Lady-Eowyn." The soldier bowed and scuttled out of the doorway as fast as his legs could carry him.

Legolas laughed at his friend's red face and gave him hand to pull him up. Aragorn grabbed his slender hand, but then pulled Legolas down to the floor too. Legolas grinned, then shifted so he was sitting on Aragorn's chest and blew a raspberry down at the poor man who was slowly turning purple.

_I'll be your twin_

"I-I…"

The unfortunate soldier was back in the doorway, blushing crimson and looking ready to faint. The boy took a deep breath and closed his eyes tight. "The King needs to speak with Lord-Lord Aragorn." He got out the message then fled the scene, again, with his eyes still screwed tight.

Legolas slid off Aragorn and they both sat on the stone floor. "Poor boy. Should I go apologize?" Aragorn asked, once he was able to breath again. "or at least make sure he makes it alright through the halls."

Legolas shook his head. "No, but you might want to apologize to /her/, after you've talked with Theoden King."

"I will, after the King sees me, I wonder what he- wait-" Aragorn sorted out his thoughts. "That's a her!" A woman dressed as a soldier- She could not fight, she would die and and- he had to stop her. Aragorn jumped up and sprinted to the door. Or rather tried to sprint to the door.

Legolas had a death grip on his ankle so the future king took about half a step before he fell flat on his face and Legolas dragged him back

"Aragorn! You can not. Her name is Lislet; she has no children to protect, nor will she ever. And she made an vow, Aragorn; I saw it sworn, to protect the sons of those who cannot fight." Legolas said desperately. "You must allow her to protect them, to fulfill her pledge. Her oath, Estel, it 'tis an oath."

He was almost begging him, pleading as close as an elven prince could get to pleading, and Aragorn remembered how seriously the elves took oaths. That an oath was binding beyond death and the highest form of a promise. To break it…

"I promise," he sighed. "I promise. I will not stop the lady from fighting." He could not do anything to stop the woman, but at least someone else can…

But Legolas was one step ahead of him. "Or get King Theoden to stop her."

"Alright!" Aragorn laughed. Never try to outwit an elf…

"Or anyone else, either."

"Fine. Legolas, I've given my word. Do you really think it worth so little?" Aragorn gently poked his friend as he got up to leave. King Theoden could not be kept waiting.

"No, mellon. Never." Legolas whispered, but his friend possessed not the hearing of the elves and did not hear him as he walked out the doorway.

Legolas leaned against the mat and watched the rays filter in from the high set window. It wouldn't be long 'til night fell and another battle began. Another mindless slaughter that left behind wreckage and ruin. That would leave families broken and shattered. That could leave him alone and friendless.

He absentmindedly chinked the hourglass with his toe and gazed down at the object.

"I hate you, you know." He glared at the hourglass.

"When you run out of time, we'll just turn you back over and start all over again." He flipped it over and watched the sands sift through.

"But some things you can't just turn over. Some things just run out of time and there's no turn back because they're gone and they'll stay gone because they're dead."

The words flitted through his brain, over and over again. Dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone…

"And he'll leave me, gone forever. Maybe not today, or tomorrow or the next day, but one day, I'll wake up and he'll be dead."

No more laugher, banter, no more hope in life, because really there'll be no more Hope.

"And it's not like as though I never realized he'd die, just that it never seemed important. It never seemed to matter because there was still time left and it was years and years away. So I just pushed it from my mind."

He leaned his head on the mat. "I'd thought I lost him," he told the beam of sunlight streaming through.

"I'd thought that this was the end and to be so close and to come so far, and never get to see him on the throne with Arwen by his side and little snotty grandchildren running everywhere. I'd thought that the world had cracked and broken and one thought that kept running though my mind was that I'd never get to see his children." Legolas smiled up at the ceiling, a sad ironic smile.

"They'll be just like him."

And then he didn't say anymore, just lay looking up at the ceiling, lost in his memories of a little boy that somewhere along the line grew into a friend.

_Legolas sneaked around the back gardens of Imladris. They were very nice gardens, none like them in the world, but very orderly and symmetrical and nothing at all like the wild fields that his home called garden. And that was what Imladris was like- nice and orderly and dull, peaceful and good enough for some people._

_But no matter how many times he'd visited, Legolas always preferred his home-with the surprises and danger and a couple of spiders thrown in._

_Yes, he sighed; Imladris was wonderful for vacation, but all together too peaceful. Which was why, he reflected, he was sneaking around the bushes. With any luck he'd be able to find Elladan and Elrohir and surprise them before his father's messenger informed Lord Elrond that he had come along with him. The main problem with this plan, however was that he had no clue whatsoever where they were._

_And that's when he heard it, below the chirping birds and elven singing, there was someone crying. _

_He had not heard anyone cry in Imladris, not since Celebrain's passing over the sea, and then it had mostly been Arwen that had cried. But Arwen was in Lothlorien, home had too many memories for her, and –she hadn't come home, had she?_

_Legolas crept close, intent on figuring out who had reason to cry in the peaceful happy place of Elrond the Half-elf. It was a little elfing, crowned with dark locks that hid his face from view, surrounded by vibrant tulip flowers that leaned toward him, trying to offer their own comfort._

_Legolas couldn't just leave him in tears, even without the flowers gently pushing him to go toward the elfling. So he slipped out of the bushes and sat down on the bench next to the distraught child, who didn't even look up from his seat._

"_What is wrong?" He asked._

_The child looked up with red eyes and a blotchy face. _

"_No one likes me!" he wailed "All of the elf children l-laughed at me and the other Edians said I'- I'm… strange!" _

_He latched his little child arms around Legolas's neck, who was really quite shocked. He had been expecting maybe a polite 'go away" or maybe a few sniffles, but this was… woah. And the elfling was a human child, too. He didn't know of any Men in the Last Homely Home._

_Legolas awkwardly patted him on the back. "Um… well" He tried to think of something to say, but the boy went on._

"_And everyone else has a twin, so they don' ne-need f-friends." The boy wiped his nose with his sleeve and sniffled. "It's not fair. El 'n El are twins and Nana said that Estor and Gorfi looked like twins and-and…" He burst out in fresh tears. "Even Ada had a twin!" _

_He rubbed his face with his tunic and Legolas gingerly handed him a hankie when he went to wipe his nose again. This issue sounded like one that had been festering for a while. The boy blew hard and then put the soiled and bulging hankie back in Legolas's hand, who stared down at it. What was he going to do with this…_

"_But I don't h-have a twin or any friends. I'm/twin less/!" he wailed again, even louder this time and more tears soaking his shirt and tunic._

_Legolas opened his mouth before the boy could start crying again. "I'll be your twin."_

_The boy stopped wrinkling his eyes with tears and looked up at him, dark gray eyes a bit suspicious._

"_Really?" _

_He nodded._

_The boy split his face with a huge grin and hugged him._

_-_

It wasn't until the day after that Legolas learned his new twin was called Estel and that he was the adopted brother of Elladan and Elrohir and a son of Elrond's heart. And it wasn't until after that that the two began to be friends. And it wasn't until years after that, when Estel grew into a man, that the two began to get into trouble

--

_He slammed his fist against the wall, bitter desperation eating at his heart. He couldn't believe this was happening. He couldn't believe his friend was taking the fall for him like this... not when they all knew what it would cost._

_He thumped the wall, again, trying to get rid of his anger. _

_If only Aragorn hadn't pushed him out of the way. Then he would be the one captured and Aragorn wouldn't be in danger of losing his life. Wouldn't be dead at dawn, the greatest hope for middle earth extinguished, all because stupid Isilder's heir decided to take an arrow in the shoulder by pushing his friend off a cliff. _

"_Aragorn!" He yelled, banging the wall harder. "Dammit Aragorn! Can you hear me?" it echoed off the canyon cliffs. 'Hear me! hear me! hear me…"_

"_Can you hear me?" he whispered brokenly, sliding down the face of the wall to collapse on the ground. "Can you hear me?' He didn't expect answer, but he got one._

"_L-Legolas?" A hesitant voice rasped through the dungeon wall. Legolas could almost dance with joy. It didn't matter that Aragorn was in pain, tired and probably cold. He was alive! "Legolas?" Aragorn asked again, stronger this time, his voice louder._

"_I'm here, Aragorn," Legolas told him, pressed against the rock wall. On the other side, Aragorn was stretching his chains to place his palm against the cold stone. _

_Legolas's undertone came through the rock. "I'm always here."_

Legolas sat up, his words running through his head. I'm always here. And he would be, at Aragorn's side, until he was no longer able to be.

Aragorn waked into the room, already in his chain link mail, putting on his gloves. "Battle's soon." He remarked, sitting next to Legolas on the floor. Legolas looked over at him.

"I'll always be here." Legolas said, watching Aragorn's eyes. He was confused, but happy. Happy that Legolas was happy.

"I know." Aragorn smiled back, not quite sure what his friend meant, but as long as he was content- it was fine with him. "Come on." He hauled Legolas to his feet, as Dwarvish curses sounded from the hall. "Gimli's been looking everywhere for you. He needs help with chain mail."

Legolas gave a small laugh at this and pitched his voice to carry. "Do humans even come that scrawny?" He yelled, hefting his quiver on his shoulder. Aragorn shook his head at him and suppressing a smile as the curses moved on to Legolas's linage.

"We can not seem to find any that fit him…"

His voice faded off, as the friends got farther away from the room.

In the corner, an hourglass spun on its side, leaking sand.

-End-

* * *

You made it! So what did you think? In character, out of character? too long? Too short?  
Did the flashbacks suck as much as I thought they did?  
I should never ever touch a keyboard again?  
Let me know what you think, please review. You can't know how much reviews mean to me. If you don't review I don't even know if you read it or not. So please just say 'Hey I read this.' I mean, I'd like paragraphs but I'd also like a pony for Christmas. Which is in about two days!! And I know what I'm getting! 'Return of the King DVD!! I've wait so long.  
PLEASE REVIEW!

Happy Holidays,  
Saturn's Hikari


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